“An argument between the girls, for one. What happened between you and Teresa before the fire started, Wylie? You had a disagreement?”

“I am going to advise against answering that question, Wylie,” Rachel says to me. Then she turns to the detective. “Seems like you’re fishing for your evidence right now.”

“We didn’t argue,” I answer, even though Rachel just told me not to. How can the truth possibly hurt? “Teresa was upset, and she asked me to walk her back to her room. And so we talked for a little while and then I left her room. After that, the fire must have started, I guess.”

“You guess?”

I am going to have to mention Kelsey. I have no choice.

“Did you talk to Kelsey?” I ask. “Maybe she knows what happened.”

“Kelsey?”

“She was another one of the girls in the hospital.”

The detective consults the manila folder in front of her on the table. She pulls out a piece of paper and puts it in front of me. “This is a list of all the girls who were there,” she says. “I don’t see a Kelsey on that list, do you?”

Of course it’s not there. Kelsey isn’t her name. But how can I explain all that? Instead, I just stare down at the list of names. Whatever I say now will sound like an insane lie.

“Let’s move on.” The detective pulls something else out of her manila folder and slides it across the table toward me. “Do you remember seeing that?”

When I look down, it’s a photograph of the baby I threw into the garbage. I pick it up with two fingers. More proof against me. None of this has been a coincidence. Of course it hasn’t.

“Wylie, I advise you again not to answer that question,” Rachel says, and more sharply. “They can twist things you say here in ways you can’t anticipate. Don’t hand them evidence.”

But I still have the truth on my side. I believe that. I have to.

“Somebody left that for me,” I say. Besides they must already know all of this anyway. “They used to leave dolls like that for us at my house, too, before Cassie ever—for a long time.”

“Wylie,” Rachel growls. “Stop talking.”

“From what we’ve heard it sounds like you were upset to get one in the hospital,” the detective says. “Were you angry that Teresa left it for you?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “She didn’t leave it.”

“Well, we found another one exactly like it in her bag. The baby definitely belonged to her.”